NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Eritrean government rejects The Associated Press ‘scandalous lies’ in which witnesses describe a massacre of several hundred people carried out by Eritrean soldiers in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel criticized Thursday’s story of the massacre in the holy city of Axum in Ethiopia in a series of Twitter posts.
“Relevant Ethiopian institutions have long found the total error of the story,” he said. Neighboring Ethiopia has repeatedly denied the presence of Eritrean soldiers in its Tigray region, which has been largely disrupted since the fighting began in November between Ethiopian and Allied forces and those in Tigray.
Gebremeskel has not answered questions from the AP during the Tigray conflict for several months,
The Eritrean government has not confirmed the presence of thousands of its soldiers in Tigray.
Witnesses from several communities in Tigray accused them of robbery, murder and widespread sexual assault. The Tigray region borders Eritrea, and witnesses described seeing trucks of prey crossing the country.
Thursday’s story quoted witnesses as saying Eritrean soldiers attacked and killed civilians on the streets and churches of Axum, then blocked some people from burying the bodies. A deacon of the church said he believed about 800 people had been killed in a single weekend in late November and that thousands in Axum had died in total.
Eritrea, one of the most secretive nations in the world, has long been an enemy of former fugitive leaders in the Tigray region, who ruled the Ethiopian government for nearly three decades. At that time, Ethiopia and Eritrea had been fighting a border war for two decades.
The conflict ended in 2018, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed concluded peace with Eritrea, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. Now, some critics of the Tigray conflict accuse Abiy of collaborating with the long-serving Eritrean president. Isaias Afwerki, to target the region.
No one knows how many thousands of civilians were killed.
The Ethiopian Red Cross warned this month that without improved humanitarian access in a region where 80% of the 6 million population is still inaccessible, thousands could starve to death in a month.